Untitled article by C. P. B.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · September 3, 1891

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 6, No. 35

Prohibition from a Wrong Standpoint.

By C. P. B.

THE SENTINEL is not and never has been opposed to the prohibition of the liquor traffic on proper civil grounds. It may be that under existing conditions prohibition is not practicable; but that does not affect the principle. If the saloon is a menace to the peace and safety of society, if it makes criminals and paupers, thus increasing the burdens of taxation, if it endangers life and destroys property, the State may properly prohibit it.

But this is not the standpoint from which prohibition is advocated by the great majority of those who are in favor of it. Very unfortunately, it is made a religious question. It is proposed to prohibit the liquor traffic not as a menace to civil society, but as a sin against God. This is a most serious mistake. It is a mistake however to which the Prohibitionists are very generally committed. This is well illustrated by the following resolutions, which among others, were adopted by the Prohibitionists of St. Lawrence County, in their recent convention at Ogdensburg, this State:—

Resolved, 1. That the question of how to deal with the rum traffic is the problem of the age, and that its solution is the work upon the hands of the Prohibition party under God.

Resolved, 6. That the interests of our Nation demand a faithful observance of the holy Sabbath and the enforcement of law touching the same, for the sake of the home and public safety.

In the name of God, and home, and native land.

In this assumption of a divine commission to abolish the liquor traffic lurks a very grave danger. Necessarily, when men assume to act for God, they assume also to interpret the will of God; and in this the Prohibitionists are no exception. Demanding prohibition for religious reasons, because it is sin, and because it hinders religious work, they necessarily stand committed to the suppression of everything that in their view is morally wrong, that is, everything that is in violation of the divine law; for it cannot be denied that if it were the duty of the State to prohibit the liquor traffic because it is sin against God, it would be equally its duty to prohibit all sin.

It is this confusing of civil and religious things that leads the Prohibitionists to demand Sunday legislation. Assuming that it is their mission to prohibit sin, and believing disregard of Sunday to be sin, they demand that it too be prohibited.

This is directly in the same line with the National Reformers, whose scheme of government is thus explained by Rev. N. R. Johnson, in the Christian Statesman:

All civil governments and all officers should take the Bible as the higher law and as the rule of action. Indeed, this holy law is just as good a rule of action in the State, as in the Church, or in personal relations. Accordingly the whole moral law as summed up in the ten commandments, and the whole moral Mosaic penal code, would be the rule of action in Congress, in State Legislatures and in the courts of justice. Kidnapping, man-stealing, blasphemy and adultery, as well as murder would be punished by severe penalties. Not the ever-changing will of the people, but the unchangeable law of the Most High would be of supreme authority. As this would be right, can we doubt that good would result?

This we are told “would tend powerfully to the suppression of existing evil—of all abounding wickedness. Public idol-worship, profanity, blasphemy, Sabbath desecration, disregard of parental authority, oppression of the poor, and of the millions once enslaved, shameful wrongs done to women, the licensed liquor traffic, intemperance, legalized prostitution, infamous divorce systems, polygamy, bloodshed, adultery—these and similar evils would be punished as the divine law requires.”

To be consistent every man who demands prohibition because the liquor traffic is sin, must with avowed National Reformers demand the enforcement of the whole of the moral law as summed up in the ten commandments; in short every logically consistent Prohibitionist is, whether he knows it or not, committed already to the National Reform scheme. And this is the reason that no man who has a just appreciation of freedom of conscience, and who is willing that his neighbor should enjoy the perfect religious liberty sought to be guaranteed to every citizen by the Constitution of the United States, can affiliate with the Prohibition Party. C. P. B.